Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 7/9/23 Hurry and Worry

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

Homily from the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time "Hurry is the greatest threat to the spiritual life and the way of Jesus." We constantly experience the temptation to "max out" our lives by racing from event to event, task to task. The goal of life is union with God and anything that takes us away from this goal is a major threat to this goal...including hurry.Mass Readings from July 9, 2023:Zechariah 9:9-10Psalm 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14Romans 8:9, 11-13 Matthew 11:25-30

Welcome to Sunday homilies with me, Father Mike Schmitz. I hope today's homily inspires and motivates you, and I also hope that it leaves you hungry for the one who gave everything to feed you. If you want to get this in other Sunday Mass resources sent straight to your inbox, sign up at ascensionpress.com slash Sunday, or by texting Sunday to 33777.7. You can also follow or subscribe on your podcast app for weekly notifications. God bless.

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 11, verses 25 through 30. At that time, Jesus exclaimed, I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. For although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my father. No one knows the son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. Come to me. all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy, and my burden, light.

The gospel of the Lord. So over the holiday time, we just had holiday weekend, holiday week, I had a chance opportunity to drive back from my family's place in middle of Minnesota, northern Minnesota over to Duluth. and there's this road called Highway 210, and it is a one way going west and one way going east, and that's it. That's just two lanes, essentially. And I knew I was leaving the wrong time of day. Usually I'd leave either really, really late at night or really, really early in the morning. I left right where every other tourist leaves. And so I found myself stuck. I knew I'd be stuck.

And so it was like one of those things where I was like, I'll be stuck. I'll be fine. And then I found myself in a train of cars behind one car that was going 55 miles an hour and a 60. And I just thought, and I was like, maybe that happens, right? sometimes that happens. Like someone just slows down. There's something's up there. Who knows? But no, no, they set the cruise control at 55.

And I just was one of those. What is happening right now? Like, because it was, the train of cars was too long for me to like go around all of them because I'm not that crazy. And I just thought like, this is nuts because who in the world would choose to go 55 miles an hour when the speed limit is 60? So call myself, called upon the Lord. It just used that as an opportunity to pray.

And I just was reflecting on this idea that, okay, wait a second, what's my problem? Because the problem's me. Like, I'm the problem, it's me. And the problem is, I was looking at the speed limit. The speed limit is 60. And my mind automatically goes to, oh, then you at least go 60. The speed limit's 30.

Then you at least go 30. It's 45. Then you at least go 45. And yet it's called the speed limit, which means at some point, some people or someone decided, this is the max. Like, this is the limit at which you can drive and still be safe on this place.

And my thought is, well, then you automatically, automatically max out. Like wherever you're at, 30, 45, 50, 60, 70, you go the, you go as much as fast as you possibly can. And I just thought, that's interesting. And I still believe that's true. But, but I was realizing that's how we look at life, how so many of us look at life, is you could go a certain pace, but why not like max out? Like you could go just like get through life at just like a normal human pace. But we say, what's the limit? And that's the speed I'm going to go. And maybe even a little over. And we live our lives. I live my life in this way that's just like, man, I am always, always in a hurry. I literally didn't even have anywhere to be. I didn't have

anything to get back to. I just wanted to rush. I just wanted to be in a hurry. And we live our lives in a hurry. And you might say, Father, that's so crazy of you. Listen, it's almost all of us. In fact, there is this diagnosis that some psychologists have coined hurry sickness. They said our culture right now here in the West, we suffer from this thing called hurry sickness. And if you're you're like, oh, I wonder if I suffer from this. Here's three questions, three indicators that this psychologist described and said, if you've ever done any one of these things, you might suffer from hurry sickness. One was, if you've ever been in the grocery store and you go to the checkout line and you scan, go back and forth and you see whichever is the shortest line, you might

suffer from hurry sickness. If you've ever been pulling up to a stoplight and you've changed lanes because there were fewer lanes in one lane or you saw the truck, the big truck in one lane, you're like, I'm not going to step behind that thing, I'm going to go to the other lane. If you ever change lanes, you might suffer from hurry sickness. If you've ever been multitasking, third thing is if you've ever been multitasking, and you ever forgot one of the tasks because you're too busy multitasking, you might suffer from hurry sickness. And this is so common.

Like, we just think this is normal. In fact, if I ask those three examples, you might say, well, why wouldn't you go to the shortest shopping checkout line? Why wouldn't you? If you can change lanes, why not? Why wouldn't you change? This is just normal because for us, busy is normal. In fact, that's how many times that's the answer people give.

How are you doing? Good, busy. That's it. How are you doing? Good, but busy. And we just think that busy is to be expected. There are few years back I read a book by a man named John Mark Comer. I mentioned it before within the last year or two.

And it's just, it was so convicting. In the book, he gives a quote by a man named Dallas Willard. I have a bunch of books from Dallas Willard as well. And at one point, Dallas Willard was talking to one of his mentees, a man named John Orrberg, and a bunch of John Orrberg's book. I just collect these three men's books. And he's talking to John Ropeberg, and John was asking about, like, well, how do I live? John was a pastor at this point.

He's like, how do I live my life? And in fact, he was even at Dallas Willebridge, even asked the question, like, what's the greatest threat? What's the greatest threat facing American Christians? What's the greatest threat facing our spiritual lives right now? Like in the 21st century, what is the single greatest enemy of the Christian? In Dallas Willard, who's a very deep thinker, he said this. He said, hurry. Hurry is the greatest threat to the spiritual life and to the way of Jesus.

Now, think about all the things he could have said. He could say, you know, the culture is against us. He could say a culture of death. He said he could have said, he could have said, sin. But this profound, deep Christian thinker said, hurry is the single greatest threat to our spiritual life and to the way of Jesus. In Comer, in his book, he goes on to remind us what sin is. And I think about this is so important.

So sin in the ancient world, sin was a, word that was used in archery, right? So here's the target, and to miss the mark was to sin. So sin, kind of the etymology of the term oftentimes means to miss the mark. And General Comer says, okay, so if that's what sin is, if sin is to miss the mark, as Christians, we need to ask the question, what's the mark? Like, what's the goal? What are we trying to do? What are we trying to hit? And the answer, in so many ways, you could say, well, the answer, the goal of the Christian life is union with God. The goal of the Christian life is not simply to do good or to be good, the goal of the Christian life is God himself.

The goal of the Christian life is union with God. And so if the entire point of life is union with God, then he observes this. He said this. He said, if the mark is union with God, then sin and your phone have a very similar effect. But if the mark, the whole goal of life is union with God, then sin and your phone have a very similar effect because sin takes me away from you.

with God. And what else does? Netflix? What else does? Social media? What else does? That rectangle in my pocket. There's this, the woman in Corey Ten Boom. Cori Ten Boom was, she survived the Holocaust, incredible Christian woman who after World War II went around Europe preaching a gospel of forgiveness and mercy. And Corey Ten Boom, in her wisdom, she once said, she said, if the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. If the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. And I think that's the truth for so many of us. So many of us who are trying to follow after Jesus. You can look at our lives and say, well, I'm not bad. I'm just busy. So in the gospel today, what does Jesus say? He steps into these lives who are, yes, we're called to have union with him.

We're called have union with God. And yet we keep missing the mark. Because why? Because I keep being taken away from this moment. And he says, come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. What does that word? That term rest sound like again. For so many of us, we're so busy, Jesus says, I will give you rest. I sometimes wonder how many of us even know how? How many of us really even know how to rest? Because I think when it comes to rest, we have a couple of different options in our world. We don't necessarily know how, so we avoid it.

We avoid rest. Or we get to the end of so much stuff to do that when it comes time for there's nothing left to do, we just collapse. So we either avoid rest, we collapse. Or there's some other things we do. there's this woman psychologist named Ruth Haley Benson, sorry, Ruth Haley Barton. She says, if you want to suffer from hurry sickness

or if you want to know if you suffer from hurry sickness, she says, when you enter into rest, do you find yourself in a place of restlessness? Meaning you try to stop and you can't? So the work's done. You've got to check your email. That you're on vacation, but you've got to just, I just want to make sure.

I just want to just kind of like see what kind of loose ends are out there. That's time to rest, but you find yourself restless. You find yourself unable to stop. Or she also asks, she says, you know, what some people do is they engage in escapist behaviors. And those kind of escapeist behaviors can be everything from like, again, it's time to rest, but I just excessively scroll. Like I say, it's time, it's time to sleep, but I just want to see what the next thing is. What's the next real?

It's the next TikTok. What's the next video? Or binge watching or social media, alcohol, all these things are like, this is my sign that I'm resting right now. I'm not resting. Jesus says, come to me all you who labor and a burden. I will give you rest. And this is the thing.

I am not trying to cast stone. or not pointing fingers, I'm the worst. I literally, I am the worst when it comes to this. When it comes to like the podcast, like Bible in a year, catechism in year, I have, I have to listen to them on two-time speed. Like, there is not one podcast that I listen to at normal speed or even 1.25 or 1.5, 1.7. 2-5, 2-time speed, every podcast. There's not one YouTube video I have ever watched in the last three years, I think. That was not two-time speed, unless it was music. It was music, I'll, like, slow it down to the normal kind of a thing. Netflix even has the capacity that has the function, or you can watch a move.

you can watch a TV show or whatever it is at 1.25 or 1.5 speed. And I found myself in a place where I'm just trying, you're supposed to just enjoy the movie. And I'm thinking, yeah, but if I watch it at 1.5 speed, I'll get through it faster. So I am the most guilty person I believe who's part of this virtual front pew when it comes to all these things. And that's the problem. So the answer or the question is, and what do we do? Like, what is the answer? Is the answer, is the answer we need more time?

is the answer if we just had more time, then we would have more rest. If we had more time, then we'd be less busy. I don't think that's the answer. In fact, it's never been the answer. There's a Roman philosopher named Seneca. And so way back in the day, thousands of years ago, he had said this. He said, it's not so, it's he said this. He said, it is not that we have so little time, but that we waste so much of it.

It's not that we have so little time, but that we waste so much of it. He went on to say, the life we receive is not short, but we make it so. We are not ill provided, but we use what we have wastefully. I think that's true about my life. And besides, even if we were given more time, what would we do with it? Will we fill it with more? It's like those little rental storage spaces. I mean, you say, we have so much stuff in our house, let's, instead of get rid of it,

let's just have another space that we can store it. In fact, I remember coming across the stat in the book by John Mark Comer, where he says that before the invention of the light bulb, the average person, the person, average people, average whoever it was, would average 11 hours of sleep a night. You can just try to imagine that right now, that before the invention of the light bulb, virtually everyone, would average 11 hours of sleep every single night. But now I have a light bulb, now I have stuff to do. Now I can engage with life even after it's dark and even after I maybe should be in bed.

If I was given more time, I would just fill it with more stuff. I think we're hurry because we've said yes to too many things. because there is such a thing as good busy, right? Good busy is to be able to spend your life on purpose, right? To spend your life and meaningful pursuits. Jesus was good busy. Jesus had a, he had a life that was full. He had a life where he was engaged with life.

He lived it on purpose, though. There's also not only good busy, there's bad busy. In fact, Comer, I can be referring to him today. He refers to Ronald Rollheiser. And Ronald Rollheiser talks about bad busy is pathological busyness, where we find ourselves not with a lot to do, but with too much to do. I've said yes to too many things. I find myself not just with a lot to do.

That's good. That's Jesus had a lot to do. But with too much to do. And say, why? Why do we keep coming back to this place where I find myself with too much to do? I think one is because we haven't decided what's the most important thing. Like we haven't decided what's the most important thing to do. And we haven't reconciled ourselves with the reality of limitation.

And think about this. I mean, we're given this promise of just like, go out there and do it, go out there and get after it, go out there and like there's nothing you can't do. At some point, we have to, every one of us has to realize. And yet we're all limited. Come face to face and accept the reality of our own limitations that I cannot do it all. And I must not try. So I haven't decided what's the most important thing.

I haven't accepted my limitation. Or, you know, sometimes we find ourselves busy, bad busy. Because why? because I didn't do what I knew I needed to do when I knew I needed to do it. How many times we find ourselves busy in the moment because this was supposed to have been done before? And actually, I had the chance to do it, but I didn't do what I needed to do the moment when I knew I needed to do it. And into this kind of world, Jesus steps in and says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. We've talked about this so many times.

What a yoke was back in the ancient world. The yoke was that farming implement, right, that went around the neck and shoulders of a beast of burden. And typically there were the double yoke, right? So there's two animals side by side. So when Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, he's not saying, hey, take my yoke away from me. Here he is at work. Here he is in his mission, his head through the yoke.

And when you put your head through the yoke next to his, Jesus is asking us not only to embrace his mission, but also to embrace his vision, to look out at the world the way Jesus looks at the world. So when Jesus says, okay, you're so busy, you have a life, not just a lot to do, too much to do. Take my oak upon you. Learn from me.

So look at the world, the way I look at the world. And it's one of the ways we get to do that is just by watching Jesus. One of the invitations today is to take time, I know it's all time, but take time to go to the Gospels and to just watch how Jesus lives. To go to the Gospels and just listen to how Jesus talks,

to hear the way he interacts with people. And he's not hurried. I mean, it's not just the Gospels. You know a lot of people who join us, you've gone through the Bible in a year. and maybe once the Bible in a year, once, maybe twice. Here's the reality is that we go through the Bible in a year. We go through the Bible, not just so like, hey, I did it.

I heard all the stories, got through all the names. We go through the Bible again and again because it shapes our lens, right? It gives us a biblical worldview. It helps us to look like Jesus, helps us to look out at the world the way Jesus looks at the world because he was shaped completely. He is the shaper of the Word of God, but also as a human, he was shaped by the Word of God. So when Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, he's inviting us directly, that is a direct invitation, to go back again and again to

his word. So that's what we can do. Take my, our yoke, Jesus' yoke upon us. But we recognize also that one of the reasons why we hurry is not just what we do, but kind of also how we do it. I'd say that how we do things reveals a lot. In fact, hurry is deeply connected with another pathological behavior. That pathological behavior is so many of us enter into, engage with is worry. So hurry and worry are very deeply connected, not just because they rhyme with each other, but they are so profoundly affected. I think, I think a lot of us are in a hurry because of worry, that we have all these things to do. We have all these tasks, all these responsibilities. But there's this, not just the work we have to do, not just the work

we have to get done, but there's this thing that's called the work beneath the work. Because if I just had a deadline, okay, just do it. Great, just take care of it. If I just had to get from here to there, just no problem, just get there. If I just had to take care of all these kids and raise them as best I can, just raise them as best you can. That's it. But there's that work beneath the work.

In fact, C.S. Lewis, my boy, he says, said this, he says, it's not the burden. It's the way we carry it. It's often not the burden. It's the way we carry it. It's not just the work. It's the way we do it. We do it with worry.

Now, you might think, like, father, not worry. Listen, I care. Like, I care about raising my kids. So, of course, I'm going to worry. or I care about getting this job done right, so of course I'm going to worry. Or I care about this. That's why I'm hurrying through this.

And I believe you. But here's the distinction. Here's a way to tell the difference between whether you care or whether you're worrying. Another way to say it is how to tell if what you care about has become merely something you worry about. I would say this. If you think the same thought five times in a row without making any forward movement, if you think the same thought five times in a row without taking any action, you have the same thought five times in a row without making any kind of decision, any kind of

progress. That probably isn't just caring. That probably is worrying. And that's probably connected to fear. I think worry and hurry are connected to fear. They both come from the same place. Why am I in hurry? I'm afraid of being light. Why am I worried about that? Because I'm afraid of being light. Why am I worried about it? Because I'm afraid I'll miss my chance. Why? Why am I worried right now? Why am I in a hurry? Because if I don't get this person to the hospital, they might die. So there's not like there's nothing to be afraid of. There's not that there's not that there's There's nothing that we could fear. There are things to fear.

But that becomes the source of our hurry. And that becomes the source of our worry. And someone might say, yeah, but no, no, no. I'm in a hurry because I'm excited to get to that thing. Good? But you're in a hurry, not because you're excited to get there. You're in a hurry because you're afraid you'll miss out if you don't get there soon enough. See, in so many ways, hurry and worry stem from fear.

So Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from you. You know, you can read the Gospels every single word, take in every single letter. You will never, ever see Jesus in a hurry. You will never, ever see Jesus worried. You'll see him in grief. You'll see him sad. You'll see him angry. You'll see him in agony.

That's what they call it the agony in the garden because there was agony in the garden. But you will never see Jesus worried. You will never see Jesus in a hurry. Why? Well, he says, take my oak upon you, learn from me. Every situation. Number one, Jesus would trust. God is in this. First thing, how we can learn from Jesus. Learn from me. He trusted that in every moment God was in this. Every moment, God was there. Every action, God was there. No matter what happened, he trusted God is here. From late,

God is here. If things are not going the way I want them to, God is here. If someone is in distress, okay, God is here. If it's time to act, let's act. Why? Because God is here. And that's the second thing. Jesus, he acts when he needs to act. So often, the reason I'm worried, the reason I'm hurried is I didn't act when I needed to act. I didn't do the thing I needed to do. But Jesus is never worried. He is never hurried because when it's time to act, he acts. When it's time to rest, he rests.

When it's time to move, he moves, when it's time to just be at peace. Well, he's always at peace. Jesus teaches us. We can learn from him that he acts when he needs to act. And the third thing is, not only does Jesus trust that God is in this, every moment and every action, not only does Jesus act when he needs to act, but also he's rooted deeply in the Father's love because we cannot give what we don't have. We cannot be who we haven't been made to be. Jesus is deeply rooted in the Father's love. He knows that every moment of every day

that he is the Father's son. I worry because about the opinion of others. I'm concerned if I do this well enough because what will other people think? Jesus isn't worried about those things. Jesus isn't hurried because of those things, and neither should you be. Jesus trusts that God is in this. He acts when he needs to act, and he's rooted so deeply in the Father, and this is the last thing. This book from John Mark Homer is a book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. The title comes from a quote by that second author, John Orpurg, where Dallas Willett had told John Orpurg, John said, what do I do as a pastor? How do I live as a pastor? He's like, I think, should I study more?

Should I pray more? Should I work more? Should I whatever? And Dallas Willard told John Ropeck, he said, what you need to do is you need to go about embracing the ruthless elimination of hurry. And that transformed John's life. He actually, he said it's a big risk, though. This is the invitation for all of us to take Jesus' yoke upon us and learn from him

to really actually engage with the ruthless elimination of hurry. John Ropeck described to he said, it's like in other ages or in other areas of the church when someone to make a vow of poverty. To make a vow of poverty is to cut off what everyone else thinks is necessary. To make a vow of poverty is to eliminate from your life what everyone else says, this is normal. This is just how you live life. This is just what you need to do in order to make it in this world.

But there have been so many men and women over the course of the last 2,000 years of Christianity who have made a voluntary vow of poverty and have experienced freedom. Why not? This week, try. Why not embrace this invitation to ruthlessly eliminate hurry? And to see it, to see it as like a vow of poverty, even more deeply, to see it as what

Jesus is calling you to. He's calling you to rest. He's calling me to rest. He's calling us to let go of fear that leads to worry and leads to hurry. He's calling us to trust that God is in each moment and he's as active, whether I'm late or whether I'm on time, whether the project is finished or whether the project is not, whether these kids are doing great or the kids are not doing great. He's calling me to realize, like him, God is present in the moment to act what I'm called upon to act and to be rooted

deeply in the Father. When we do this, we don't just eliminate hurry. We make room for God to do something incredible. We know if Satan can't make us sin, he can make us busy. We know that sin is missing the mark. We know that the mark is union with God and therefore sin and my phone do the same thing in my life. But we also know then that eliminating that distraction, eliminating hurry, eliminating worry, will be just like eliminating sin. You not only make room for God, make room for joy. And that's what Jesus wants for us to enter into his rest and to enter into his joy.